The House Judiciary Committee has been trying for months to get its hands on documents it subpoenaed from Facebook/Meta. GOP congressmen are trying to obtain documents outlining meetings, takedown orders, and other censorship directives sent to the social media company by the Executive branch. If the company does not comply soon, Republicans say they’ll move forward by holding CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress.
This search for documents started with the release of the Twitter Files after Elon Musk released all the documents on political censorship by the federal government, particularly executive branch agencies and the White House. Facebook claims that it has turned over 53,000 pages of documents, but the Judiciary Committee says the company is not complying with specific requests in the subpoena.
We know that Facebook was involved in censoring Americans’ speech online because it said so in many of the Twitter Files. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) kept all of his speech takedown requests for Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube on the same spreadsheet that his staff forwarded to all three companies. He even had the Big Tech companies censor his direct election opponents.
Contempt of Congress is a specific charge that the House or Senate can make to try to compel someone to turn over documents. If Mark Zuckerberg is charged with the crime, he could face up to a year in jail. Whenever this tactic has been used in the past, the person held in contempt usually caved before finishing up their full sentence.
As fun as it would be to see Mark Zuckerberg in handcuffs, especially after his mail-in ballot drop box stunt in 2020, it probably won’t happen. Congress can file and pass the contempt charge against Zuckerberg. But then it would be up to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the totally corrupt Department of Justice to prosecute and jail Zuckerberg. That will never happen.
